Popular novels vs. books about Chinese culture: Explicitation within Shanghai baby and Marrying Buddha (Spanish edition)

Abstract

The main objective of this research is the study of the phenomenon of explicitation in the Spanish translations of the novels Shanghai baby and Marrying Buddha, by Wei Hui (1973) — a member of the Chinese “Latest Generation” of writers, considered a pioneer in her audacious treatment of taboo topics —, and the relationship between different explicitation methods derived from the particular background of each translator. In order to study the corpus of explicit elements in the translated text, we used descriptive methodology by applying cultural translation (Witte, 1987; Pym, 1993; Nord, 2001) and explicitation theories (Klaudy, 1998; Hurtado, 2001: 268–271; Englund, 2005: 34; Heltai, 2005: 65–66). We concluded that academic translators / interpreters and popular novel translators use different translation approaches when dealing with works from the same writer.